Dr. Jared Reading Gives Covid-19 Update

Update from Dr. Jared Reading regarding questions on when the county should revert back to a 25% occupancy for retail and restaurants: 

The governor’s order set out three criteria for when a county should revert back to 25% occupancy, from the 50% occupancy at which Uvalde is currently. 

The 3 conditions are: 

1. Five consecutive testing/tracking intervals with positivity rates greater than 12% in that interval.
2. The county has more than 3 positive cases per 1000 residents.
3. Less than 15% of the surge capacity in hospitals for the catchment area is available. 

Positivity is a measure of how many tests are being performed and how many result positive. It will help you decide if the county is doing enough testing. A lower positivity rate is better. 

Uvalde County had 8 cases turn positive from May 26 to June 1. During that time, 142 Uvalde County residents were tested yielding a positivity rate of 5.6%, well below the 12% threshold. 

Uvalde County has approximately 27,000 residents so it would take 81 active cases to revert to 25% occupancy. Again, Uvalde County is well below that threshold. 

Uvalde Memorial Hospital (UMH) has 6 dedicated rooms that are kept for COVID patients. More severe cases will be sent to San Antonio. Neither UMH nor San Antonio are at the 15% surge capacity threshold. 

Based on the governor’s disaster declaration mandates, Uvalde County is not required to shutdown at this time. 

For the governor’s opening guidelines for sports and other activities, visit: https://gov.texas.gov/organization/opentexas 

Sports activities, pools and many other activities are not required to be shutdown at this time, but they may choose to do so if they do not have the ability to safely open per the guidance given by the governor’s office. 

The governor’s office is expected to give more guidance on opening on June 3, 2020.